Kurdistan presidency urges tolerance, respect after Kurdish flag incident in southern Iraqi province
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Presidency of the Kurdistan Region on Wednesday called on everyone to preserve the spirit of tolerance in the country and respect for the Constitution of Iraq after an incident involving a Kurdish flag occurred in Iraq’s Muthanna province.
On Tuesday, a video circulated on Kurdish and Iraqi social media platforms showing an Iraqi military officer repeatedly asking a Kurd present at the unearthing of a mass grave to remove the Kurdistan flag which was draped over his shoulders.
During the unearthing of a mass grave, suspected to contain Kurdish remains, in Iraq’s southern Samawah desert, an Iraqi military officer repeatedly asks one of the Kurds present to put down the flag of Kurdistan he was carrying on his shoulders.#Iraq #TwitterKurds pic.twitter.com/0DWwnFgFyp
— Kurdistan 24 English (@K24English) July 30, 2019
The video outraged Kurds as they strongly condemned the incident, some complaining that “chauvinistic” attitudes toward them persist in the country, decades after they suffered anti-Kurdish genocidal campaigns.
Soon after the video circulated on social media networks, Governor of Muthanna Ahmed Menfi released a statement officially apologizing for the incident.
He stated that the officer’s actions were those “of an individual” and did not reflect the governorate’s “attitude and thoughts toward the Kurds.”
“The officer is currently detained until further investigation into the matter,” Menfi added.
The Chief of Staff of the Kurdistan Region Presidency’s office, Fawzi Hariri, on Wednesday thanked Menfi for his apology and all those who stood against the act.
“We assert that such behavior reflects a lack of understanding and disrespect for the Constitution of Iraq, and that such individual actions will not be a cause for creating tensions and illegal reactions anywhere. Everyone must maintain the spirit of coexistence and tolerance, respect the Constitution, and the constitutional rights of all components,” Hariri said
The incident came hours before the 36th anniversary of the genocide that took place on July 31, 1983, against the Barzani tribe. The Ba’athist regime in Iraq at the time transfered around 8,000 members of the Barzani tribe, including men, women, and children, to deserts in southern Iraq, executing them indiscriminately before burying them in mass graves.
On July 23, a mass grave was unearthed in Iraq’s Samawa city that contained the remains of Kurdish civilians buried alive during the former Iraqi regime’s Anfal campaign.
In the 1980s onward, the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein undertook a campaign of genocide against the Kurds in the north. Led by the infamous Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as “Chemical Ali,” the operation resulted in the deaths of up to 182,000 ethnic Kurds.
A large number of people, including women and children, were forcefully displaced and transferred to camps in southern Iraq, where the government eventually killed them and consigned them to mass graves, burying others alive in the desert.
Editing by Nadia Riva